Signups opened, people registered, and we had lots of fun reading all the replies. Arabic and Hebrew are now over-subscribed, while there are still some places left for Yiddish and Batmitsvah – grab them while they’re hot!

The responses in the signup forms were too good to keep them to ourselves so we thought we should bits of them. Here is a sample of the languages already spoken by our students-to-be: Italian, Turkish, Latin, Gaelic, Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu, Indonesian, Dutch, Slovak, Czech, Spanish, Catalan, Romanian, Greek, Russian, German, French… 

We also asked prospective students to tell us a joke. Here’s a pick of our favourites:

– “What did the cheese say when it looked in the mirror?
Halloumi”

– “What kind of cheese do you use to hide a horse?
Mascarpone!
(Like “mask-a-pony”!)”

– “How many Freudians does it take to change a lightbulb? Two: one to change the bulb, and one to hold the penis – I mean mother! — I mean ladder!”

– even a linguistic joke! “Why can’t you hear a pterodactyl go to the toilet? Because the “P” is silent.”

– “Donald Trump”

– “Um”